The present invention relates to high-speed picking systems for holding stacked or heaped parts within a tray.
Conventionally, for picking a part from a plurality of parts, a gray scale (variable density) image data is produced on the basis of a video signal, which is obtained through the use of a camera. The image data is then differentiated so as to trace the ridge line of an edge within the image data so as to extract a border line and thereby obtaining a line segment image. Further, the pattern-matching is then made between the line segment image and a collative model, which corresponds to the configuration of a part to be held. By this method, the uppermost part of the plurality of parts. However, parts for general industrial articles are normally stacked one above another within a tray or the like so that each of the stacked parts may take a greatly inclined state with respect to the horizontal plane. Thus, in this situation, it is difficult to recognize and pick up one of the stacked parts on the basis of the collative model. The difficulty arises because the collative model was formed under the condition that the uppermost-positioned part is not in the inclined state.